


green hearts and violent beginnings

by Smilla



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2011, F/M, M/M, season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-11
Updated: 2011-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-14 16:07:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/pseuds/Smilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dean's <i>enjoying</i> a night off and Castiel drops by for a visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	green hearts and violent beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Insight2](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Insight2).



> For the most joyous occasion of Insight2's birthday. Many thanks to Nyoka for her expert beta reading. ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine. Title from Noli Me Tangere by Traci Brimhall.  
> [Originally posted [here](http://smilla02.livejournal.com/224303.html).]

Dean wakes up to a loud bang and for a moment he can't say if it is his dream bleeding through or a real noise. The room is shrouded in semi-darkness and silence. Dean knows it's empty even before he opens his eyes and stares at his watch, waiting for the tiny numbers to finally come back into focus. There's an eight and a ten: in which order he doesn't know, though it's not like he gives a fuck.

The bed beside him is unmade, untouched, a perfect and pristine coverlet with squared angles of puke-yellow cloth falling onto the floor in generous folds. He snorts as he sits up, has to bend his head between his knees to shake off the dizziness and to ease the knot of hard-pulling muscles on his lower back. His feet are killing him, trapped inside his boots for however long he's slept; he takes them off together with his socks. He then eases his thumb into the deep, red lines the laces imprinted on his skin.  
A look around reveals a note on the table pinned under a half-filled glass of whiskey. Condensation has left a trapping ring around the words. _Be back in the morning. Took the car, hope you don't mind. Rest up._ He fucking minds, actually, but it's not like Sam's around so he can tell him.

He rereads the note: there's no signature, nothing else but Sam's scrawl to tell him it's authentic Sam, or as authentic as he can consider Sam these days. He snorts at the patronizing tone his new-and-improved-brother manages to convey even through such a short note, lets the anger wash over a tide of memories that feel too old he doesn't even know whether they're real or if he created them in his semi-asleep brain. The feeling finally settles somewhere over a mix of worry and resignation; he hopes at least Sam's not around killing puppies and kittens.

He drinks the whiskey in a gulp and revels in the warmth spreading from his stomach to his limbs. He slowly rips the note into two pieces, then into four, eight, sixteen; he then lets the pieces fall onto the floor in a shower of colorless confetti.

*

The bathroom has a tiny tub lined with black mildew, but a blessedly big hot-water tank that will help wash away the slime. Dean fills it to half-way before the water goes cold. By the time he's done, the mirror is fogged over and he's naked, his stinky clothes thrown into a formless heap on the floor. The fog softens the bruises on his face to smears of red and blue over his cheekbone and around his left eye. He touches them with a finger and grimaces: no broken bones, and that's as good as it gets.

Before he steps inside, he amasses the tiny bottles of shampoo and soap he's stolen from countless motel rooms on the edge of the tub together with his shaving kit. The bottle of whiskey, he puts on the toilet, easy to grab. He drinks a big gulp that works nicely at numbing the outer layer of his skin, before he starts to shave himself blind using his fingers like a mirror.

The soap smells awful, chemical-heavy, and the consistency is only a step above water. It's weird that it annoys him, now, after living with this stuff his entire life. Knows that it's the year he spent at Lisa that's made him soft. Lisa used– to buy him exotic-looking soap with exotic names and ingredients like sandalwood, or mint and rosemary and myrrh, which left their lingering scent on his work clothes hours after his morning shower. Sometimes she would work delicately fragrant oil into the muscles of his back and shoulders when he came home sore from work. Her fingers were so sure and teasing they always ended in a tangle of limbs after: Dean inside her, and Lisa above him, taking everything he had to give – even as little as it was.

In that moment, sitting in a tub too small for him, the memory's so vivid Dean feels the loss all over again. Another sip from the bottle makes it vanish like the steam from the rapidly cooling water.

Ten minutes later he's washing suds from his hair and body with freezing water, and the rasp of the scratchy towel on his freshly-shaved face when he dries himself up makes him shiver.

*

When Dean goes outside, the view is even more depressing than the one inside the room. The rain has left a layer of sludge over the street and the houses that the overhang lights paint in the same sickly yellow the room's decorated with. He wonders, as he walks toward the shop at the corner of the street, if it's a town thing, everything covered in a color that makes him want to puke.

He decides that yes, it's a town thing, no matter how ridiculous that sounds, when he gets inside the shop and the walls are painted yellow. He shakes his head and blinks away the droplets of water falling into his eyes from his still wet hair. It's getting too long.

The clerk follows his movements warily; eyes jumping from Dean's baggy clothes to his bruised skin. Dean smiles wide and toothy at the clerk's wizened face and ignores the sudden interested look that lights his pale eyes when Dean pays in cash for two bars of candy, the tablets of Advil, and the bottle of whiskey that's going to help him get nicely shit-faced before the yellow in this shit-hole of a town ends up claiming him too. The clerk nods and follows his movements through the anti-theft mirrors over the entry door. By the time Dean's back inside his room he's mad for no apparent reasons he bangs the door shut behind him with enough force the walls vibrate.

Inside, Sam's untouched bed mocks him with failure after failure, and he flings himself over it, leaving smears of chocolate and mud on the coverlet out of a spite that nobody will react to. Sam's like a rubber ball, Deall reflects while he changes channels on the tiny TV, everything Dean does or says pings back against him twice as hard as he's thrown it. It leaves Dean constantly bruised. He settles on a _Magnum P.I._ marathon and looks disinterested as Tom Selleck leaves puffs of red dust in the wake of his red Ferrari.

*

The dreams are a confused tangle of memories, some real, some not: flames as high as the sky and burning skin and hands everywhere, over his eyes and inside his gut. When he finally lets the dream go he opens his eyes to see Castiel's silhouette framed against the window.

He bolts from the bed, or he tries to, his reflexes sluggish and slow, stomach rolling with too much cheap alcohol and the heavy weight of his dreams. Castiel turns around, and in the dim light his faceis dark and Dean swears he can see the outline of something along his back, though it may only be his addled-brain that's making him see things that aren't there. On the TV screen a guy dressed like a chef is twirling big kitchen knives with the same dexterity of a serial killer.

"Hello, Dean," Castiel says.

Dean lets out a long sigh, locks his knees and stands up. The inside of his mouth feels pasty, tongue stuck and swollen. He eyes the bottle and remembers his grand plan for his night off hunting. He swallows a sip of whiskey straight from the bottle that leaves a fresh path of fire down to his guts, but also does the job of loosening his tongue.

"I hope you're not here for my help," Dean says. "Because tonight the only helping I'm doing is from this bottle." He raises it before the roll of the room forces him to lean onto the wall for support. "Sorry about that. You should have called first."

Castiel's gaze is too intent, too focused; he's up in his personal space with a soft flap of his invisible wings, face bent sideways in that peculiar way of his that makes him look slow but for the penetrating blue of his eyes. Cas stares at his bruised face and Dean flinches back on impulse, irrationally worried that he'll decide to heal him.

Castiel's arms, though, are loose at his side and Dean ducks his head, out of shame, out of sheer tiredness, maybe – he doesn't know. He's not up to dealing with it, with Castiel and his war and his disappointment and the shitty friend he feels like lately; he's not up to dealing with everything that needs dealing with.

"No," Castiel finally says.

Dean struggles to fit the answer to the question before he finally nods. "Good." He unsticks his back from the wall and steps around Castiel's body and toward the only chair.

"Come drink with me, then," he says, throwing the invite at Castiel, who's still staring at the spot Dean's just vacated.

*

Surprisingly, Castiel does stay, though he doesn't drink. He sits on Dean's – no, on Sam's bed – and changes channels on the TV with the volume turned off. Dean can't see what's on the screen from the angle he's sitting, and Castiel's face is too blank to gather what he's watching. The flicker of the cool screen light digs deep furrows under Castiel's eyes and under the dip of his nose and mouth. Dean's been nursing the same glass for the last – he checks his watch – forty minutes – and he's achieved that perfect state of loose numbness that he'll pay for tomorrow with a wicked headache. The room's warm and shifts slowly whenever he lets his gaze wander away from Castiel's face.

It's kind of surreal, if Dean's honest with himself – surreal and nice – this not being alone. Castiel is the only unmoving point, statuesque in his stillness. The formidable strength of his focus may be settled on a cheap porno or on some infomercial as far as Dean can tell from the neutral expression on his face.

Of course, because Dean's a fuck up, no matter how he puts it, he has to break the mood.

"Cas," he rasps, voice too rough and low, though Castiel doesn't seem to have any problem hearing him. "Why are you here?"

And he wants to add, go back to your war and stop losing your time with me, but he isn't so brave to refuse Cas's company tonight, so he doesn't.

Castiel throws a disinterested look at the TV before turning it off. The room falls into deep shadows: a canyon of darkness between the twin beds and mounting blackness in the corners eat at the walls. Dean staggers up and flings the curtains open to let the light from the high moon get inside.

When he turns, Castiel's right there, eyes bright and only inches from his own.

"Cas, why are you here?" Dean asks again. He swallows, suddenly too aware of the proximity of Castiel's body. His trench coat tickles the back of Dean's hand with an unexpected draft of air when Cas moves.

Dean stills when as Castiel unbuttons his shirt, working loose each button until the shirt is open and then falls on the floor with a wave of Castiel's hand. Dean closes his eyes as Castiel does the same with his jeans, leaving him butt naked in front of a window, his pale skin surely visible to whoever happens to pass by.

Castiel says, "May I?"

Dean's nod is absentminded. He knows deep down they've always been headed here, when and how – and where – only a matter of time: just a matter of Dean letting go of his anger, of Castiel being ready to finally make that extra step, of Castiel being ready to come back. Though, Dean isn't going there now, because he's not sure this is Castiel being ready to come back, and he's lost any hope of making anyone stay a long time ago.

Castiel's lips are dry at first, no tongue at all; just the hot skin of his mouth over Dean's, tentative up to the moment Dean opens his own to give him access and to taste for himself. Then it's like a fucking dam breaking, and Dean finds himself being thrown back against the wall on the right side of the window. Still too close to being exposed for comfort, though he can't work himself up enough to mind.

The kiss is long, deep, teeth and tongues and pulsing blood inside Dean's ears over the shivers travelling straight to his cock. When he touches Cas's shoulders he finds naked skin and he takes a moment to smirk at the pros of angelic-undressing powers before Castiel's biting on his lower lip, effectively capturing Dean's wandering focus.

Dean presses Castiel's body against his own when he bites him back hard. The wood of the windowsill digs into his back, a delicious counterpoint of pain in exchange for the pure pleasure of Castiel's cock dragging slowly against his own.

When Castiel whispers, "Let me," he nods trusting Cas beyond the telling of it. Castiel flings himself back then, and the loss of heat feels unbearable for all of the second it takes Cas to touch Dean's forehead with a mixed look of gratitude and admiration that hits Dean so hard, he's forced to close his eyes.

The tips of Castiel's fingers are cool, the zip of energy, grace, angelic mojo or whatever is like a shock of cold that fires up Dean's nerves. Then the weirdest thing happens: Dean's inside his body, but also outside, a draft of air on his exposed back that he ought not to feel. Dean's own fingers leave white tracks along Castiel's back, and mirrored ones furrows down Dean's own; the rasp of Cas's unshaved face scrapes against the tender skin of Dean's neck, and the salt on his own skin explodes across Dean's taste buds when Castiel licks a path down to Dean's nipples. Dean's cock swells impossibly hard trapped against Castiel's sharp hipbone, and Castiel's cock swells just as hard against Dean's navel.

It goes on for so long, each sensation intertwined: echoing each other and going on and on until Dean doesn't know which is his and which belongs to Cas. It's too much, _too much_ : a sweltering heat between them that drains all the air from Dean's lungs and gives it back through the expansions of Castiel's own breath. And yet Dean wants more, more of Castiel's naked skin, sore under his strong grip, more of the cooling slashes of Castiel's tongue on his nipples, the drops of saliva pooling on his navel, the soreness of hard-kissed lips, the insistent, sharp breach when Castiel finally gets inside. Dean feels filled and completely surrounded by Castiel's heat. Castiel's fist grips tight around Dean's cock and Dean's own muscles tight around Castiel's.

The speed is dizzying, fast the way Dean needs it, the way Dean wouldn't have asked for, all fed by this weird short-circuit Castiel established between them with a simple touch of his fingers to his forehead. The release, when it finally comes, whites out Dean's vision and makes Castiel explode with light so bright Dean fears he's going blind for a moment until something happens and he's back to being just himself, in his own body sore and weary and sated and panting hard in the grainy darkness behind his eyelids.

*

Castiel's not around in the morning, allergic as usual to any kind of goodbye.

Dean resists the impulse of rolling his eyes and wonders for a moment if he can get away with considering what happened the night before a wacky dream.

The bruises on his tighs and the soreness on his back seem to just mock him, and he rolls his eyes at himself this time. He sits up and gets dressed for a morning run to work the alcohol and the lethargy out of his system before Sam decides to come back.

It's only on the way back, wet with sweat and glad to see his own car parked in the motel parking lot, that Dean realizes that Cas never told him why he'd come.

\--


End file.
